Criteria for Syllabus Development

A carefully developed syllabus provides the following information to students:

1. Introduction and course objectives including bulleted items
2. Course requirements (including field study if required)
3. Grading procedure (including portfolio review if required)
4. List of topics or modules in the order covered with brief description of each
5. Reading list or course resources

Here is a sample syllabus:

Course 14.986:
Collaborative Leadership and Organizational Change

Course description: Examines school organizations and cultures; forms of school governance; the change process; and the concept of collaboration among administrator, teacher, parent and community leaders as a means of bringing about more effective schools.  Proposals for reconceptualizing schools are reviewed.  This course will include a field-based training component.

The above course description is the official course description approved by the Graduate Education Council and the Department of Education at Framingham State College. This is a required course in the Master of Arts in Educational Leadership degree program. It is intended for teachers who aspire to school based leadership positions including team leader, department head, director, assistant principal and principal. The course is also available to students not in the degree program.  

Course objectives - Each student will:

1. participate in the development of a hypothetical school profile to be used as a model school for studying collaborative leadership and organizational change;
2. identify various leadership styles to and their likely impact on collaborative school-based management and leadership;
3. develop vision and mission statements that reflect accepted principles of strategic planning;
4. develop diagnostic skills required to measure the attainment of key result areas that are part of a school mission statement;
5. develop multi-year strategies to implement a school mission and key result areas;
6. develop a model of an annual school improvement plan that reflects strategic planning principles and the criteria established by the Massachusetts Department of Education;
7. develop a model approach to performance monitoring that reflects the above objectives;
8. consult with practicing principals and other administrators in considering the above; and
9. submit a major paper (final examination) integrating all of the above

Instructor: Romeo Marquis is Associate Dean, Academic Technology and Distance Education at Framingham State College. He is a Blackboard system administrator, an online course developer, and the author of a compact disk entitled Teaching Online at Framingham State College. Before coming to the College he was a school principal for twenty years. During his most recent principalship he was responsible for leading the restructuring of a comprehensive high school curriculum within the context of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act. As an educational planning consultant for twelve years he worked directly with more than one hundred schools throughout the northeast in strategic school-based team planning and conflict management.

About Online courses: Online courses at Framingham State College meets all academic standards of other graduate courses at Framingham State College. Although classes do not meet in a traditional sense, most students will find that they will devote as much time to an online graduate course as they would in a traditional classroom based course – in many cases even more time. Unlike traditional face-to-face classes that meet once each week, online courses move along more frequently. Therefore, most students find that they have to login several times each week throughout the course.

Contact information: Office hours are virtual. Email is answered at least daily. Also available by phone at 508-626-4927 from 8:30 – 4:30 most days. AOL Instant Messenger is also recommended – can be downloaded at http://www.aol.com for free even if you are not an AOL user. The instructor’s screen name is Romie6506.

Course outline:

• The Principal and School Based Planning - Preparation Steps: School readiness for planning is often assumed. However, in spite of mandates and directives, not all schools are in fact ready to become involved in legitimate school based planning. In this first module participants will consider several factors – including collaboration – that influence a school’s readiness to develop meaningful plans that become true action plans rather than stagnant documents.
  
• Leadership Principles and Values: Leaders do not necessarily share the same values. Therefore, the very terms leadership, collaboration and change take on different meanings depending on the principal’s perspective and how he or she promotes those values within the school. In this module participants will consider various theories pertaining to leadership, collaboration and change. They will consider several approaches to school based leadership and to their anticipated consequences.
  
• School Mission and Objectives: There are major differences between vision, mission and philosophy. These differences must be clearly understood and articulated if school based planning is to be effective. Many school missions are simply statements of current practice. A legitimate mission must include a stretch factor based on anticipated change. The mission is the what of planning – what is to happen in the future if the school if the school is to improve. The mission is supported by a few key result areas. In this module participants will study a real school based mission to determine its value in strategic planning.
  
• Diagnosis: No physician would prescribe treatment without the benefit of valid diagnosis of a patient’s situation. Such is the case with school based planning. In this module participants will consider internal and external factors that influence the quality of school based planning – including the school’s culture within the context of collaborative leadership and organizational change.
  
• Strategy development: Strategy development is the how of school based planning. Multi-year strategies help the school based leadership team and the entire school work toward the achievement of the school’s mission and key result areas. These multi-year strategies will remain relatively constant during a typical three-year planning cycle. In this module participants will engage specific strategies within the context of collaborative leadership and organizational change.
  
• Annual School Improvement Plans: The annual school improvement plan is not an isolated static document. In most cases, an effective school improvement plan will set short-term performance standards reflecting the school’s mission, key result areas and multi-year strategies. This plan will reflect instructional priorities within the framework of the annual school budget. In this module participants will analyze their own school improvement plans.
  
• Performance Monitoring: Performance monitoring is an essential component of school based planning. Without measurement, planning is worthless. In this module participants will analyze and/or develop specific measurement steps within the context of school improvement planning.

Required materials: There is no required textbook. All required materials will come from the Internet and from local sources. Each student will need a copy of his or her School Improvement Plan. The following Web sites will become important components of the knowledge base for this course.

• Massachusetts Department of Education Advisory on School Governance - http://www.doe.mass.edu/lawsregs/advisory/cm1115gov.html
• Massachusetts Department of Education - http://www.doe.mass.edu/schcouncil/pubs/2001/sc_hndbk.pdf
• National Association of Elementary School Principals - http://www.naesp.org/
• National Association of Secondary School Principals – http://www.nassp.org
• National School Boards Association - http://www.nsba.org/
• International Society for Technology in Education – http://www.iste.org
• North Central Regional Educational Laboratory - http://www.ncrel.org/
• Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning - http://www.mcrel.org/
• Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development - http://www.ascd.org/
• The Administrators’ Corner – http://www.thelearningcurve.org/docs/AdminCorner.pdf
• What Is Cheryl Learning? – http://www.thelearningcurve.org/docs/Cheryl.pdf
• Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning – http://www.anovember.com/articles/asilomar.html
• Changing the Way Teachers Teach - http://www.edweek.org/sreports/tc98/cs/cs5.htm
• The Link to Higher Scores – http://www.edweek.org/sreports/tc98/ets/ets-n.htm

Process: Participants will apply course content through a case study approach including highly interactive online assignments. They will also develop individual papers applying course content to their own local school situations.

Student evaluation: Students will be evaluated according to three major criteria:

• Participation in online interactive assignments (25%)
• Development of individual short-term assignments (25%)
• Submission of a culminating paper – developed in sections as the course progresses (50%)
• Consideration of course content and assignments within the framework of the required pre-practicum experience in the Master of Arts in Educational Leadership degree program (degree candidates only)

The practicum in school leadership provides students with an opportunity for a supervised experience in the administration of a school system.  The student is guided by the cooperating school system and his/her college supervisor.  Experiences are included to familiarize the student with all facets of the responsibility of school administration and those representing a range of racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds. When completed over two semesters, students receive a grade of Incomplete after their first semester.  Securing a placement for the practicum is the student’s responsibility. Prerequisite:  Open only to students in the Master of Arts degree program who have completed all core concentration courses.

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